Review of Video about Application of “Fractal Technology” to Kansas Voter Data
A "voter issue" is neither "good nor bad"
Last week the Gateway Pundit published an article, “Omega4America Targets Kansas Voter Rolls – Fractal Technology Reveals Error Rate Significant Enough to Impact Elections,” and companion video by Jay Valentine of Omega 4 America.
[I am not aware of any connection to the mathematical concept of “fractal” in this name. I see “fractal” here as a marketing buzzword.]
The Gateway Pundit title is a bit of a disconnect with the discussion in the video: Gateway claimed an “error rate significant enough to impact elections,” but the video only discussed “voter issues” that were “neither good nor bad” that may be “something that a Secretary of State, an election official, or a citizen may want to look at.”
While some voter issues are related to potential voter fraud with a number of voters across Kansas, Valentine showed no cases where laws were broken.
Fractal technology did show issues related to bloated voter rolls. “Phantom voters,” who have stopped voting but remain on the voting rolls for many years should be addressed.
There are many questions that need answers:
What are residency requirements for homeless people in Kansas? Should a voter be able to register at a business, a warehouse, a school or church address? What are the consequences?
“Voter issues” can be identified in voter rolls, but what actions can a county clerk or election official take if no laws are broken? Election offices must have authoritative sources of information before they can take action, but what should that look like? For example, is an online obituary sufficient to prove a voter has died?
Is citizen monitoring all that is possible until laws are broken?
What information will be accepted by election officials to fix problem data in voter rolls? Can “bad data” simply be ignored in voter files?
Fractal Kansas Investigation
In the video Valentine claims his Fractal team found 40,000 “incorrect addresses” in the Kansas voter file from June 29, 2023, but did not indicate what was used as the reference standard.
I completely agree with Valentine’s statements:
“voter rolls are fraught with all kinds of inaccuracies,” and
“constant monitoring of voter rolls” is needed.
But some of Valentine’s statements are a bit of a stretch:
“those inaccuracies have been there for decades” (the Kansas statewide voter file is 17 years old).
SQL technology is dead and only Fractal technology can be used to clean voter rolls.
Problems are caused by “terrible technology to work with.”
Fractal cleaned the Kansas Voter Rolls in 15 minutes “to be perfectly accurate.”
Fractal’s claims of “real-time” interactivity when using multiple versions of Kansas voter data with various external data sources is good performance. But a single Kansas voter, or all voters at a single address, can be found in seconds using an Access database of current data on most PCs with suitable index files in place.
Fractal’s creative use of data sources to identify “voter issues”
In the video Valentine showed how to use information from other sources, such as property tax records in Johnson and Wyandotte counties, to find discrepancies in the number of bedrooms and the number of voters at addresses – the theory being that a “residence” is where one usually sleeps.
The Fractal System’s integration with external data sources, such as Google information and Google maps, or lists of businesses, and interactive manipulation of data, helps speed research of voter issues.
But integration of data sources can bring its own problems. Each data source has its own error rate that is likely not well understood and could cause other “issues.”
For example, the former dean of medical informatics at KU Med told me in 2012 the error rate for the Social Security Death Master File (a government list of people who have died) was about 0.5%! Some entries in the Death Maser File are not correct, and some people who have died are not always listed.
Voter issues explored using Fractal
I was able to verify many of Valentine’s Fractal analysis claims with the Kansas voter data I have from Aug. 25, 2023, including …
[Time marks (h:mm:ss) give locations in video, for additional information about using Fractal.]
27:15 Rutlader Oupost RV Park, 33565 Metcalf Rd, Louisburg. 50 voters, 37 active; ages 21-76; 3 Ds, 25 Rs, 21 Us, 1 L; 13 never voted, 23 voted in 2020-2022. One voter has been registered 21 years, but the median length of registration is 4 years.
34:35: St. Mary’s Food Kitchen, 645 Nebraska Ave, KCK (Wilhelmina Gill Services Center). What are residency requirements for homeless people? 58 voters, 55 active; ages 28-76, 26 Ds, 2 Rs, 30 Us. 31 never voted, 10 voted in 2020-2022. The median length of registration is 9 years.
51:51 Frank Williams Outreach Center, 1201 N 7th St, KCK. 52 active voters; ages 24-71; 19 Ds, 4 Rs, 29 Us; 32 never voted, 5 voted as recently as 2020. [Frank Williams Outreach Center is a drop-in center for people experiencing homelessness in Wyandotte County.] Valentine wondered if undeliverable ballots might be accumulating at this site. One voter has been registered 29 years, but the median length of registration is 7 years.
45:29 K-State Delta Upsilon Fraternity, 1425 University Dr, Manhattan. 23 active voters; ages 23-40; 1 Ds, 17 Rs, 4 Us, 1 Ls; 10 never voted, 4 voted in 2020 or 2022. Election officials need a better way to identify college students no longer in school and likely no longer living in the state. (I observed similar problems at colleges in Ohio in the 2020 election.) The median length of registration is 9 years, but one voter has been registered 19 years!
1:04:17 K-State Delta Chi Omega Sorority, 1516 McCain Lane, Manhattan. 11 voters, all active; ages 22-42; 3 Ds, 6 Rs, 2 Us; 4 never voted; 2 voted in 2020. The median length of registration is 15 years, but one voter has been registered 23 years!
1:10:42: Johnson County Election Office, 2101 E Kansas City Rd, Olathe, 7 voters, 5 active; ages 34-73; 1 D, 5 Rs, 1 U; all voted in 2020 or 2022. Former election commissioner Brian Newby years ago started registering “problem” voters at the address of the election office so they could be tracked more easily. My understanding is this is an administrative matter and not one initiated by a voter.
1:14:05 Jails: Leavenworth Detention Center, 100 Highway Ter, Leavenworth (2 active voters; 59 and 70 years old; 1 never voted, 1 voted in 2020) and Winfield Correctional Facility, 1806 Pinecrest Cir, Winfield (1 voter, voted in 2022). Oddly, the two at the LDC registered exactly on the same date in 2020 and have been registered for nearly 4 years. Valentine noted LDC was inactive in Aug. 2022, but the vote from that facility occurred in 2020.
39:36 Warehouse at 2222 S 138th St, Bonner Springs. Active registered voter “JB”, 68, R has a voting history of 10 past ballots, but none of those were cast since 2012. Voter files show JB was registered and voting from a KCK address from 2008 to 2011. On 2012-02-24 he became an “inactive” voter but was “active” again by 2012-09-13. “JB” never voted since “moving” to the Bonner Springs address. JB has been registered for 29 years, but how is JB still on the voting rolls after having not voted since at least 2012?
1:07:26 Walmart, 1905 E 17th Ave, Hutchinson. Registered voter “WLD” is a 67-year-old woman, who registered in 2021 and has never voted. Valentine showed a data source indicating this registration might be at postal facility at the Walmart address.
While there were “issues” related to potential voter fraud with a number of voters across Kansas, Valentine showed no cases where laws were broken. Most of the locations with “voter issues” only had a few people voting in recent elections.
Kansas needs a new approach to fixing problem data in voter files
Problems in the voter file since 2006 are constantly re-discovered as new people look at the data. Valentine reported invalid birthdates that have been known for years but never fixed.
“Unknown” date codes from the initial 2006 statewide voter file have never been fixed when some counties used special dates, such as 1/1/1800, 1/1/1801, 1/1/1900 or 1/1/1901 for “unknown” birthdates. Twenty-four voters in Kansas still have one of these four invalid birthdates. These problems were reported in a presentation to the Kansas legislative last year, but they’re still in the file. I reported such birthdate problems over 10 years ago.
An official with the Secretary of State’s office told me election officials are not allowed to seek corrected information from voters about old, invalid birthdates, due to the rules of how data were integrated from all 105 counties initially. Perhaps that rule should be revisited?
In 2006 Geary County had tab-delimited fields inside tab-delimited fields in the released voter file. Records for some of their voters have not been parsable for years. The problem has almost solved itself with only one problem Geary County voter remaining now. There was no way to get this problem fixed.
I once asked former JoCo Election Commissioner Brian Newby why he bothered to enter invalid phone numbers into the state’s ELVIS database. Newby told me he was required to enter the data exactly as entered on the voter registration application.
Apparently, election officials must enter exactly what is on an voter registration form into ELVIS regardless of correctness. Entering data as given by the voter is probably a good approach to avoid claims of being disenfranchised if data were “corrected” but not valid.
Perhaps Kansas laws and regulations about how and what data can be fixed in voter files should be revisited?
A formal process is needed for county clerks and election officials to process problem reports from the public about voter files. A feedback loop with public accountability will go far in fixing many problems. The existing informal system is not capturing or fixing problems. The Secretary of State could monitor these problems in the counties and give feedback to the legislature about “unfixable” problems due to legal obstacles.
We need better “checks and balances” that can help improve data quality in voter files. We really don’t have “constant monitoring of voter rolls” advocated for by Valentine.
Related
Former Rep. Watkins cuts deal to avoid prosecution for felony election fraud, Kansas Reflector, Tim Carpenter, March 3, 2021.
Former Congressman Steve Watkins faced criminal charges in 2021 for voting when registered at a UPS store in Topeka, but the other dozen or so people registered at that UPS store at the time faced no charges.
Flashback 2008: Kansas City Star publisher responds to the Election Journal about double registration, Kansas Meadowlark, Nov. 7, 2028.